Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate

Voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate
t͡ɕ
t͜ɕ
c͡ɕ
c͜ɕ
IPA number	215
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ʨ
Unicode (hex)	U+02A8
X-SAMPA	t_s\ or c_s\
Image
Sound
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The voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant affricate is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represent this sound are ⟨t͡ɕ⟩, ⟨t͜ɕ⟩, ⟨c͡ɕ⟩ and ⟨c͜ɕ⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_s\ and c_s\, though transcribing the stop component with ⟨c⟩ (c in X-SAMPA) is rare. The tie bar is sometimes omitted, yielding ⟨tɕ⟩ or ⟨cɕ⟩ in the IPA and ts\ or cs\ in X-SAMPA. This is potentially problematic in case of at least some affricates, because there are languages that contrast certain affricates with stop-fricative sequences. Polish words czysta ('clean (f.)', pronounced with an affricate /t͡ʂ/) and trzysta ('three hundred', pronounced with a sequence /tʂ/) are an example of a minimal pair based on such a contrast.

Neither [t] nor [c] are a completely narrow transcription of the stop component, which can be narrowly transcribed as [t̠ʲ] (retracted and palatalized [t]) or [c̟] (advanced [c]). The equivalent X-SAMPA symbols are t_-' or t_-_j and c_+, respectively.

This affricate used to have a dedicated symbol ⟨ʨ⟩, which was one of the six dedicated symbols for affricates in the International Phonetic Alphabet. It occurs in languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Russian, and is the sibilant equivalent of voiceless palatal affricate.

Features

Features of the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.

• Its place of articulation is alveolo-palatal. This means that:
  • Its place of articulation is postalveolar, meaning that the tongue contacts the roof of the mouth in the area behind the alveolar ridge (the gum line).
  • Its tongue shape is laminal, meaning that it is the tongue blade that contacts the roof of the mouth.
  • It is heavily palatalized, meaning that the middle of the tongue is bowed and raised towards the hard palate.

• Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.

• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.

• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.

• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Catalan[1]	All dialects	fletxa	[ˈfɫet͡ɕə]	'arrow'	See Catalan phonology
	Valencian	xec	[ˈt͡ɕek]	'cheque'
Chinese	Cantonese	豬/zyu1	[tɕyː˥]	'pig'	Contrasts with aspirated form. Allophone of /t͡s/, usually in front of the front high vowels /iː/, /ɪ/, /yː/. See Cantonese phonology
	Mandarin	北京/Běijīng	[peɪ˨˩ t͡ɕiŋ˥]	'Beijing'	Contrasts with aspirated form. Pronounced by some speakers as a palatalized dental. In complementary distribution with [t͡s], [k], and [ʈ͡ʂ] series. See Standard Chinese phonology
Danish[2]		tjener	[ˈt͡ɕe̝ːnɐ]	'servant'	Normal realization of the sequence /tj/.[2] See Danish phonology
Japanese		知人/chijin	[t͡ɕid͡ʑĩɴ]	'acquaintance'	See Japanese phonology
Korean		집/jip	[t͡ɕip̚]	'house'	See Korean phonology
Norwegian		tjern	[t͡ɕæɳ]	'pond'	See Norwegian phonology
Polish[3]		ćma	[t͡ɕmä]	'moth'	See Polish phonology
Romanian	Banat dialect[4]	frate	[frat͡ɕe]	'brother'	One of the most distinct phonological features of the Banat dialect. Corresponds to [t] in standard Romanian. See Romanian phonology
Russian		чуть	[t͡ɕʉtʲ]	'barely'	See Russian phonology
Sema[5]		akichi	[à̠kìt͡ɕì]	'mouth'	Possible allophone of /t͡ʃ/ before /i, e/; can be realized as [t͡ʃ] instead.[5]
Serbo-Croatian		Ловћен / Lovćen	[ɫǒ̞ʋt͡ɕe̞n]	'Lovćen'	Merges with /t͡ʃ/ in most Croatian and some Bosnian accents. See Serbo-Croatian phonology
Sorbian	Lower[6]	šćit	[ɕt͡ɕit̪]	'protection'
Swedish	Finland	kjol	[t͡ɕuːl]	'skirt'	See Swedish phonology
Thai[7]		จาน	[tɕaːn]	'dish'	Contrasts with aspirated form.
Uzbek[8]
Vietnamese		cha	[t͡ɕa]	'father'	See Vietnamese phonology
Xumi	Lower[9]	[^Ht͡ɕɐ]		'star'
	Upper[10]	[^Ht͡ɕɜ]
Yi		ꏢ/ji	[t͡ɕi˧]	'sour'	Contrasts aspirated and unaspirated forms

See also

• Index of phonetics articles

References

1. Wheeler (2005:12)
2. Grønnum (2005:148)
3. Jassem (2003:105)
4. Pop (1938), p. 29.
5. Teo (2014:24)
6. Zygis (2003), pp. 180–181.
7. Tingsabadh & Abramson (1993:24)
8. Sjoberg (1963:12)
9. Chirkova & Chen (2013), p. 365.
10. Chirkova, Chen & Kocjančič Antolík (2013), p. 382.

Bibliography

• Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya (2013), "Xumi, Part 1: Lower Xumi, the Variety of the Lower and Middle Reaches of the Shuiluo River" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (3): 363–379, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000157
• Chirkova, Katia; Chen, Yiya; Kocjančič Antolík, Tanja (2013), "Xumi, Part 2: Upper Xumi, the Variety of the Upper Reaches of the Shuiluo River" (PDF), Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (3): 381–396, doi:10.1017/S0025100313000169
• Grønnum, Nina (2005), Fonetik og fonologi, Almen og Dansk (3rd ed.), Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag, ISBN 87-500-3865-6
• Jassem, Wiktor (2003), "Polish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 33 (1): 103–107, doi:10.1017/S0025100303001191
• Pop, Sever (1938), Micul Atlas Linguistic Român, Muzeul Limbii Române Cluj
• Sjoberg, Andrée F. (1963), Uzbek Structural Grammar, Uralic and Altaic Series, 18, Bloomington: Indiana University
• Teo, Amos B. (2014), A phonological and phonetic description of Sumi, a Tibeto-Burman language of Nagaland (PDF), Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics, ISBN 978-1-922185-10-5
• Tingsabadh, M.R. Kalaya; Abramson, Arthur S. (1993), "Thai", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 23 (1): 24–26, doi:10.1017/S0025100300004746
• Wheeler, Max W. (2005), The Phonology of Catalan, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-925814-7
• Zygis, Marzena (2003), "Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of Slavic Sibilant Fricatives" (PDF), ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 3: 175–213